Virgil was involved in two controversies with Boniface. First, in regard to the validity of an informally administered baptism in which the officiating and ignorant priest had mutilated the Latin formula. Boniface said the bap tism was invalid, and must be repeated; Virgil maintained its validity, and on his appeal to Pope Zachary (741-752), was sustained. Second, in regard to the " antipodes " here mentioned. Virgil published a philosophical treatise maintaining the rotundity of the earth and the antipodes, which Boniface regarded as heretical because the view advanced was thought to imply the existence of two races of men, one of which did not spring from Adam, was therefore free from original sin, and had no need for or share in the work of the Redeemer. Pope Zachary, in the letter to Boniface here referred to (cf. letters of Boniface, No. 140, in Bibl. Max. Vet. Pair., 27 vols., fol. Lugd., 1677, Vol. 13, p. 131-133), characterized as perverse and heretical the doctrine of another world and other men under the earth, — " De perversa doctrina, quam contra Dominum et animam suam locutus est (quod scilicet alius muudus, et alii homines sub terra sint aliusque sol et luna)," etc.; but Virgil showed that his speculations were purely scientific and did not touch the theological doctrines of original sin or the unity of the human race. He was accordingly acquitted of the charge of heresy, and canonized by Gregory IX. in 1233. Cf. Smith and Wace, Diet, of Christian Bioy., Vol. 4, pp. 1160, 1211, London, 1887; Neander, Hist, of the Christ. Relifj.dnd Church, 3, 63; also Bayle, Diet, histor. et crit., 2d ed., 1702 (which was, perhaps, Leibnitz's source of infor mation on the subject), Eng. Trans., London, 1738, Vol. 5, p. 493; and for a justification of Virgil, cf. " Memoires de Trevoux," Jan. 1708. — TR, cir. iv] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 445 reasonings of a sober man;. provided this enthusiast speaks consistently; and it will be as true to say that a harpy is not a centaur as to say a square is not a circle. § 2. I reply that our ideas agree with things. § 3. But the criterion will be demanded. § 4. I reply further in the first place that this agreement is manifest as regards the simple ideas of our mind, for being unable to form them itself, it must be that they are produced by tilings acting upon the mind; and in the second place, § 5. all our complex ideas (those of substances excepted) being archetypes which the mind itself has made, not intended to be copies of anything nor referred to the existence of any thing as to their originals, they cannot fail to be completely conformed to the things necessary to real knowledge.
Th. Our certitude would be small, or rather nothing, if it had no other basis of simple ideas than that which comes from the senses. Have you forgotten, sir, how I have shown that ideas are originally in our mind, and that indeed our thoughts come to us from the depths of our own nature, other creatures being unable to have an immediate influence upon the soul. Besides the ground of our certitude in regard to universal and eternal truths is in the ideas themselves, independently of the senses, just as ideas pure and intelligible do not depend on the senses, for example, that of being, unity, identity, etc. But the ideas of sensible qualities, as color, savor, etc. (which in reality are only phantoms),1 come to us from the senses, i.e. from our confused perceptions. And the basis of the truth of contingent and singular things is in the succession which causes these phenomena of the senses to be rightly united as the intelligible truths demand.2 That is the difference which 1 Cf. ante, p. 317 (where the term "phantasies," in line 12, rendered by the word "notions," would have been better rendered, perhaps, by "phantasms" or "phantoms"), notes 1 and 2, and infra, p. 459. Schaarschmidt translates: " Phantasie-Erscheinungen." The term "phantom," or, as it might perhaps have been translated, "phantasm," — the Greek ^avratr^a, and the Scholastic "phantasms," — signifies here a mental modification given or produced through the agency of the senses, but having no corresponding external object, i.e. an entirely subjective phenomenon, real as such, but which, since it corresponds to no objective external reality, has, to a certain extent, the character of a mere appearance. — TR.
2 Cf. Neio Essays, Bk. IV., chap. 2, § 14, Th. (2), ante, p. 422, note 1. Leibnitz felt, says Schaarschmidt, that we could not be satisfied from a philo sophical point of view with the old definition of truth as consisting iu the agreement of thought with reality. — Tn.
446 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. iv should be made, while that which you here make between simple and complex ideas, and ideas complex belonging to sub stances and to accidents, does not appear to me well founded, since all intelligible ideas have their archetypes in the eternal possibility of things.]
§ 5. Ph. It is true that our complex ideas need archetypes outside the mind only when the question concerns an existing siibstance which must effectively unite outside us these com plex ideas, and the simple ideas of which they are composed. The knowledge of mathematical truths is real, although it re volves only upon our ideas, and finds nowhere exact circles. But we are assured that existing things will agree with our archetypes according as what we suppose therein is found existing. § 7. This serves to justify the reality of moral things. § 8. Nor are Cicero's " Offices " less conformed to truth, because no one in the world rules his life exactly according to the pattern of a virtuous man such as Cicero has painted for us. § 9. But (it will be said) if moral ideas be of our invention, what a strange notion shall we have of justice and temperance?
§ 10. I reply that the uncertainty will be only in the lan guage, because what is said is not always understood, or always understood in the same way.
Tli. [You might reply also, sir, and much better in my opinion, that the ideas of justice and temperance are not of our invention, any more than those of the circle or the square. I think I have sufficiently shown this.]
§ 11. Ph. As for the ideas of substances existing outside us, our knowledge is real so long as it is conformed to these archetypes; and in this respect the mind must not combine ideas arbitrarily, so much the more as there are very few sim ple ideas of which we can be certain that they can or cannot exist together in nature beyond what appears by sensible observations.
Tli. It is, as I have more than once said, because these ideas, when reason cannot judge of their compatibility or con nection, are confused, like those of the particular qualities of the senses.
§ 13. Ph. It is well also as regards existing substances not to limit ourselves to names or to species supposed to be estab- CH. iv] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 447 lished by names. This makes me return to discussions we have often enough had regarding the definition of man. For speaking of an innocent 1 who has lived forty years without giv ing the least sign of reason, could we not say that he holds the middle place between man and beast? It would possibly be thought a very bold paradox, or even a falsehood with very dangerous consequences. But it seemed to me formerly and it seems still to some of my friends whom I cannot disabuse as yet (of the idea) that it is only in virtue of a prejudice based upon this false supposition that these two names man and beast signify distinct species, so well marked by real essences in nature that no other species can intervene between them, as if all things were thrown into the mould according to the precise number of these essences. § 14. When these friends are asked what species of animals these innocents are, if they are neither men nor beasts, they reply they are innocents, and that is sufficient. If asked further what they will become in the next world, our friends reply they are not concerned to know or inquire. Let them fall or stand to their own master (Rom. 14:4), who is good and faithful and disposes of his creatures not according to the narrow limits of our particular thoughts or opinions, nor does he distinguish them conformably to the names and species it has pleased its to invent; let it suffice us that those who are capable of instruction will be called to render an account of their conduct and will receive their re ward according to the deeds done in their bodies (2 Cor. 5:10). § 15. I shall exhibit to you the rest of their reasonings. The question (say they) whether imbeciles must be deprived of a future state rests upon two equally false suppositions: first that every being having the form and external appearance of man is destined to an immortal state after this life; and second that everything having a human birth must enjoy this privilege. Remove these imaginative ideas, and you will see that such questions are ridiculous and groundless. In fact I think we shall disallow the first supposition and shall not have the mind so buried in matter as to believe that eternal life is due to any form of material mass, so that the mass must have feeling eternally because moulded upon such a figure. § 1C. But the 1 Locke's word is " changeling," Philos. Works (Bohn's ed.), Vol. 2, p. 176 sq., and note. — TB.
448 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. iv second supposition comes to the rescue. We shall say that this innocent comes from rational parents and that consequently it must have a rational soul. I knoAV not by what rule of logic Ave can establish such a consequence, nor how after that we should dare to destroy these ill-formed and disfigured produc tions. Oh, they are monsters, it will be said. Very well, so be it. But what will this always intractable innocent be? Shall a defect in the body make a monster, and not a defect in the mind? This is to return to the first supposition, already refuted, that the external suffices. A well-formed innocent is a man, as we believe; he has a rational soul, although it does not appear; but make the ears a little longer and more pointed, and the nose a little flatter than usual, then you begin to hesitate. Make the face narrower, flatter, and longer; there you are all at once decided. And if the head is per fectly that of any animal, it is no doubt a monster; and this is for you a demonstration that it has no rational soul and that it should be destroyed. I ask you now where to find the just measure and the final limits bearing with them a rational soul. There are human foetuses, half beast, half man, others three parts of which belong to the one, and one part to the other. How determine precisely the lineaments which indicate reason? Further, will not this monster be a species midway betAveen man and beast? And such is the innocent in question. Th. [I am astonished that you return to this question suffi ciently examined by us, and that more than once, and that you have not better catechized your friends. If Ave distin guish the man from the beast by the faculty of reason, there is no middle ground, the animal in question must have it or not have it; but as this faculty sometimes does not appear, Ave judge of it by indices Avhich are not demonstrative of the truth till this reason manifests itself: for Ave knoAV by the experience of those Avho have lost it and Avho at last have re covered its exercise, that its function may be suspended. Birth and form furnish presumptions of that which is concealed. But the presumption of birth is effaced (eliditur) by a figure very different from the human, such as that of the animal AAras, born of a woman of Zealand according to Levinus Lemiiius 1 1 Livin Lemmens — Latin, Levin us Lemnius — 1505-15(58, a Dutch physician, who was very successful in practice, and had in his time a very great reputaen. v] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 449 (Book I., Chap. 8), which had a hooked beak, a long and round neck, flashing eyes, a pointed tail, and great agility at first in running about the room. But you will say that there are some monsters or brothers of the Lombards (as the physicians formerly called them because it was said that the women of Lombardy were subject to this kind of childbirth) who approach more and more the human figure. Very well; so be it. How then (say you) can the proper limits of the figure which is to pass as human be determined? I reply that in a conjectural matter there is no precision. And there the affair ends. You object that the innocent does not exhibit reason, and yet passes as a man, but if it had a monstrous figure, it would not be man, and thus you have more regard for figure than for reason. But, does this monster exhibit reason? Certainly not. You see, then, that it lacks more than the innocent. The defect of the exercise of reason is often temporal, but it does not cease in those in whom it is accompanied by a dog's head. For the rest, if this animal with a human figure is not a man, there is no great harm in guarding it during the uncertainty as to its fate. And whether it has a rational soul or not, God will not have made it for nothing, and we may say of the souls of men who live in a state always similar to that of early infancy that their fate may be the same as that of the souls of those infants who die in the cradle.
CHAPTER V OF TRUTH IN GENERAL § 1. Ph. For many centuries the question has been asked, "What is truth? § 2. Our friends think it is the joining or separating of signs according as the things themselves agree or disagree among themselves. By the joining or separating of signs must be understood what is otherwise called a propo sition.
tion. Lemnins relates this marvellous occurrence, which he states was reported to him by the woman herself, as soon as she had barely recovered, but in which there must have beou some deception, in his De miraculis occult is nuturse, Bk. I., chap. 8, p. 37, Francofurti, 1(528, Eng. trans., p. 24, London, 1658. — TR.
2G 450 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [inc. iv Th. But an epithet does not make a proposition; for example, the ivise man. But there is a union of two terms. Negation also is different from separation; for saying man, and after an interval saying wise, is not a denial. Agreement also, or dis agreement is not properly speaking what is expressed by the proposition. Two eggs have agreement and two enemies have disagreement. The question here concerns an entirely par ticular mode of agreement or disagreement. Thus I think this definition fails wholly to explain the point in question. But what I find least to my taste in your definition of truth is that you seek truth in words. Thus the same sense ex pressed in Latin, German, English, French, will not he the same truth, and it will be necessary to say with Hobbes,1 that 1 Cf. Leibnitz, De stilo philos. Nizolii, § 28, ad fin., Gerhardt, 4, 158, Erd- mann, 69 b, Dutens, 4, Pt. I., GO, where, after expressing bis belief that " Occam himself was not more of a Nominalist than Thomas Hobbes now is, who, in truth, seems to me more than a Nominalist," Leibnitz continues: " Non con- tentus enim cum Nominalibus universalia ad nomina reducere, ipsam rernm veritatem ait in nominalibus consistere, ac, quod majus est, pendere ab arbitrio humano, quia veritas pendeat a definitionibus terminorum, definitiones autem terminorum ab arbitrio humano." Hobbes in his Lcriuthnn (Morley's Uni versal Library, No. 21), 3d ed., London: Geo. Rontledge & Sous, 1887, Pt. 1., chap. 4, p. 24, after speaking of " the imposing of ' names,' and the 'connec tion of them,'" says: " When two names are joined together into a conse quence, or affirmation, as thus, ' a man is a living creature "...if the latter name 'living creature,' signify all that the former name 'man' signifieth, then the affirmation, or consequence, is ' true '; otherwise ' false.' For ' true ' and ' false ' are attributes of speech, and not of things..." And in the next paragraph: " Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he uses stands for, and to place it accordingly." Leibnitz, probably, had this or some similar passage in mind, in his references to Hobbes' doctrine, and his statement is a possible and seemingly fair interpretation of many passages in Hobbes' writings, which passages, however, might be offset by others of a different character. Hobbes, nevertheless, seems never to have gone beyond his nominalistic position, never, at least, so far as consciously to connect his doctrine of truth with the facts of experience and the reality of things; while Leibnitz's doctrine of truth has to a certain extent at least an objective reference in affirming an actual or at least possible existence of the objects of ideas, cf. ante, pp. 422, note 1, 445, note 2, infra, p. 452, note 1.
For further exposition of Hobbes' doctrine, cf. G. Groom Robertson, Hobbes, pp. 83-itO, espec. p. 87 (Philos. Classics), Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 188f>. On the relation of Leibnitz to Hobbes, cf. F. Tiinnies, Leibniz und HobbcK, in the " Philos. Monatshefte," vol. 23, 1887, 557-573; see also, " Mind," No. 50, April, 1888, pp. 312-314. For two letters of Leibnitz to Hobbes, cf. Gerhardt, Leibniz, philos. Schrift., 1, 82-87, also, 7, 572-574, where the first letter is given with an amended text. Leibnitz appended to his Theodicte a short piece entitled Reflexions sur Vouvrage que M, Hobbes a public en en. v] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 451 truth depends on the good pleasure of men; which is to speak in a very strange manner. You attribute, indeed, truth to God, who, you will agree with me (I think), lias no need of signs. Finally, I have been astonished already more than once at the disposition of your friends who are pleased to make essences, species, and truths nominal.
Ph. Do not advance too fast. Under signs they include ideas. Thus, truths will be either mental or nominal, accord ing to the species of signs.
Tli. [We shall then have also literal truths, which may be distinguished as truths upon paper or parchment, of ordinary black ink or of printer's ink, if truths must be distinguished by signs. It were then better to place truths in the relation between the objects of ideas which causes the one to be or not to be included in the other. That does not depend upon languages, and is common to us with God and the angels; and when God manifests a truth to us we shall acquire that which is in his understanding, for although there is an infi nite difference between his ideas and ours, as regards perfec tion and extent, it is always true that they agree in the same relation. It is, then, in this relation that truth must be placed, and we can distinguish between the truths which are inde pendent of our good pleasure, and between the expressions which we invent as seems good to us.]
§ 3. Ph. It is only too true that men, even in their minds, put words in the place of things, especially when the ideas are complex and indeterminate. But it is also true as you have observed, that then the mind contents itself with the indication only of the truth, without for the present under standing it, in the persuasion that it depends upon itself to understand it when it will. For the rest, the act which takes place in affirming or denying is more easily conceived by re flecting upon what goes on in us, than explained in words. Therefore, you do not take it ill that in default of some thing better we have spoken of joining together or of sepa rating. § 8. You will also agree that propositions at least may be called verbal, and that, when they are true, they are Anylois, de la liberte, de la necessity et du hasard, cf. Gerhardt, 6, 388-399, Erdmann, 029-4534, Janet, (Euvres philos. de Leibniz, 2, 424-437, Dutens, 1, 452 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. iv both verbal and also real, for, § 9. falsehood consists in joining names otherwise than as their ideas agree or disagree. § 10. Words are at least great vehicles of truth. § 11. There is also a moral truth, which consists in speaking of things according to the persuasion of our mind; there is finally metaphysical truth which is the real existence of things in conformity to the ideas we have of them.
Th. [Moral truth is by some called veracity, and metaphysi cal truth is commonly taken by the metaphysicians as an attribute of being, but it is an attribute very useless and almost void of meaning. Let us content ourselves with seek ing truth in the correspondence of the propositions in the mind with the things in question. It is true that I have also attributed truth to ideas in saying that ideas are true or false; but then I mean, in reality, the truth of propositions affirming the possibility of the object of the idea. In the same sense we can say also that a being is true, that is to say, the propo sition affirming its actual, or at least, possible existence.] 1 CHAPTER VI OF UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS, THEIK TRUTH AND CERTITUDE § 2. Ph. All our knowledge is of general or particular truths. We can never make the former, which are the most important, well understood, and can ourselves, indeed, very rarely comprehend them save as they are conceived and ex pressed by words.
Th. [I think that other marks also can produce this effect; we see it in the characters of the Chinese. A universal char- 1 Cf. New Essays, Bk. II., chap. 32, ante, p. 281, and notes; also Bk. III., chap. 3, ante, p. 317, note 3; and Bk. IV., chap. 1, ante, pp. 397-8. Locke in the first of these passages agrees with the view of Aristotle, De Interpret., 1, l(ia, 12, that truth or falsity is predicable not of single ideas, but only of their union in judgments or propositions; and Leibnitz in the present passage maintains essentially the same doctrine in saying that by the truth he attributes to ideas he means the truth of the propositions affirming the possibility of the objects of the ideas. Such " true " or " false " ideas must, then, be regarded simply as abbreviated propositions, or as tacitly involving propositions. The idea of the decahedron (<•/. ante, p. 315, and note 1) is false, although we have its nominal definition, because the figure is impossible. — TR.
CH. vi] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 453 acteristic l very popular and better than theirs might be intro duced if small figures were employed in the place of words, which would represent visible things by their lines, and the invisible by the visible which accompany them, adding thereto certain additional marks suitable to make understood the flex ions and the particles. This would be of service at first for easy communication with distant nations; but if introduced also among us without, however, renouncing ordinary writing, the employment of this mode of writing would be very useful in enriching the imagination, and in giving thoughts less surd and verbal than we now have. It is true that the art of draw ing not being known by all, it follows that, excepting the books printed in this way (which everybody would soon learn to read), everybody could not avail themselves of it otherwise than by a method of printing, i.e. having the figures all en graved ready for printing upon paper, and adding thereto afterwards with the pen the marks of the flexions or particles. But in time everybody would learn the plan in youth, so as not to be deprived of the convenience of this figured character, which ivould speak in truth to the eyes, and would be very agreeable to the people, just as in fact the peasants already have certain almanacs, telling them without words much that they ask; and I remember to have seen some satirical impres sions in copper-plate which possessed a somewhat enigmatical character in which there were figures significant of themselves, mingled with words,2 while our letters and the Chinese char acters are significant only by the will of men (ex instituto).
§ 3. Ph. [I think your thoughts will some day be carried out, so agreeable and natural appears to me this writing, and it seems to be of no little consequence for increasing the per fection of our mind, and rendering our conceptions more real.] But to return to general knowledge and its certainty, it will be proper to remark that there is a certainty of truth and also a certainty of knowledge. When words are so joined in propo sitions that they express exactly the agreement or disagree- 2 Probably something similar to what is now known by the term " Rebus." For a brief statement of the development of writing from the picture stage, its earliest form, to the alphabetic as we now have it, cf. E. Benj. Andrews, Institutes of Gen. Hist., chap. 2, § 13, p. 49, 2d ed. Boston: Silver, Burdett & 454 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. iv inent as it really is, it is a certainty of truth; and the cer tainty of knowledge consists in perceiving tlie agreement or disagreement of ideas so far as it is expressed in propositions. This is what we ordinarily call being certain of a proposition.